The humpback is back – whale washes ashore again, this time on Short Sand Beach

ARCH CAPE, Ore. – The dead whale found at Arch Cape over the weekend washed out with the high tide before biologists could finish an examination, only to reappear on land a day later about two miles south.

The 38-foot humpback whale is at Short Sand Beach in the Oswald West State Park, the Oregon Parks & Recreation Department said.

Officials said the animal has likely been dead for quite some time before it washed up at Arch Cape.

According to marine biologists, high tides won’t be high enough over the next few weeks to take it back out to sea. However, there still is a chance it will wash into the ocean.

Researchers with federal permits are at the site collecting more tissue samples. Visitors are not allowed to take any pieces of the whale and should not touch it, officials said.

For those that are curious about the whale, state parks staff will be on the beach at 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday to offer more information.

With fewer beach-goers and cooler temperatures in the fall weather, officials said they will let scavengers and microorganisms take consume the whale as it decays over the next few weeks.

Normally the parks department would bury dead sea animals that wash ashore on busy beaches in the heat of the summer. That seems to be a more practical approach than when in 1970 the Oregon State Highway Division tried to use explosives to remove a whale from a beach in Florence.